Contact: Drew Sauer, Assistant Sports Information Director, 630-637-5324

Maranatha Baptist Box Score
Aurora Box Score

AURORA, Ill. (Oct. 15, 2016) – Despite defeating Maranatha Baptist University earlier this season, the North Central College women's volleyball team was unable to hold on to a 2-1 lead, falling 3-2 to the Sabercats in the opener of the Aurora University Jim Coleman Classic, before dropping a 3-0 match to the host Spartans.

The Cardinals (13-10) had to come from behind in the opening set against Maranatha (16-4), as the turning point came with the score knotted at 19.  A Cara Howell kill jump started a five-point Cardinal run, while Olivia Hanley recorded a pair of service aces and Rachel Elshoff added a kill to give North Central a 24-19 advantage en route to the 25-22 victory.

It was the Sabercats who mounted the comeback in set two, as North Central held a 21-17 lead late but failed to record a point the rest of the set as Maranatha pulled off the comeback with scoring the set's final eight points.

North Central's best performance came in the third set as the attack hit .333, finishing with 16 kills to just four errors to take a 2-1 lead with a 25-16 third set win.
With the match seemingly in hand, things took a turn for the worst for North Central as Maranatha broke a 22-22 tie in the fourth set by scoring the final three points of the set, evening the match at two sets apiece while forcing the all-important fifth set.

With the scored tied 13-13, a kill off the hand of Howell set up match point for the Cardinals, but yet again the Sabercats clawed back with three straight kills to quickly turn the tables and finish off the comeback victory.

Howell led the Cardinal attack with 17 kills in the opener, while Sarah Geosling finished with 14 and Julie Laugel added 12.  Annmarie Franz also finished with double digit kills with 10, also adding a pair of service aces.  Olivia Hanley led the team with four aces and 31 digs on defense.  Val Hunt finished with a career-high 35 service aces to lead all players.

North Central struggled out of the gate against Aurora (20-8), dropping the first set 25-18.  The struggles continued over the final two sets, as the Spartans jumped out to 8-3 and 6-0 leads in each of the second and third sets, respectively, en route to 25-21 final scores.

The Cardinals hit just .070 as a team against Aurora, as Geosling and Laugel finished with a team-high eight kills apiece, while Hunt led the team with 16 assists.

North Central looks to earn their first College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) win of the season on Tuesday, Oct. 18, traveling to Carroll University at 7 p.m.